A Jewish Music Treasure Trove

Fairfax is the best avenue in Los Angeles, containing,
within one miracle mile, Little Ethiopia and the Peterson Auto Museum, the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art and Farmers Market. Cross Beverly Boulevard, and
you come upon Russian nightclubs and Israeli cafes. But lately, creeping into
this "one-size-feeds-all" marketplace are a chain pharmacy, the ever
L.A.-centric Asian nail salon and a feng shui fine-tuned new shopping center.

All the more reason to thank goodness, or who knows what
else, for the fact that just across from Canter's Deli, the bleat of a clarinet
continues to beckon from old stereo speakers splayed out on the sidewalk. Step
inside Hatikvah International Records and, like a blast from Fairfax past,
you'll hear more Yiddish than English -- and smell, feel and taste it, too.

"Pardon the mess, this is where I live," said proprietor
Simon Rutberg, a guy with gingery hair, who constantly steps over boxes and
avoids cats Stinky and Princess to get to his tunes. This narrow, dingy joint
contains what he claims is the largest selection of Jewish music in the world.
More museum than disc shop, Hatikvah resembles an indoor garage sale. And its
faithful consider Rutberg more archivist than clerk.

"Oh, you can find some of this music in New York," he said
slyly, "if you know what you want and where to look. Here we have all of it."
Not just Jan Peerce and Yaffa Yarkoni, but Bessarabian drinking songs. Ladino
and Arabic. If Chasidic CDs ain't the party, there's always Mexican klezmer --
or Guns 'n' Charoses and Doc Mo She. Would you believe there's even a
"Lambchop's Passover Surprise" from Shari Lewis?

"The Barry Sisters outsell everything else in here," Rutberg
said, even though the last time Myrna and Claire recorded was in 1972.

"Don't deny the past," he added, and this is the message
loop running through his patter: Hatikvah is the one place to still find "the
authentic" in Jewish music. Some of the songs in here are 80 years old --
exotic, obscure, forgotten. You want traditional music? Which tradition? Love
liturgical? Which liturgical? "Liturgies Juives d'Ethiopie," Andalusian or a
dozen different Shlomo Carlebach albums?

As if on cue, in strolled a cantor from Boro Park and his
sidekick, both in the store to check out Rutberg's inventory. "This guy's a big
cantor," Rutberg whispered. "Huge, huge record seller." He hustled over to
shmooze musicwares in Yiddish. The cantor's companion was Herschel Fox, a
cantor who at one time was a Yiddish comedian who sang on "The Forward Hour"
with William Gunther and his band, "dozens of times," he said.

"We had a very lovely show last night," said the cantor,
hitting Hatikvah before flying home.

"Two of the best cantors in the world were there," Fox
jumped in. "A night of Jewish comedy, in Yiddish. Very successful."

"How was the turnout?" Rutberg asked.

"For an Orthodox shul," Fox said, "pretty good."

Hatikvah's record maven is a DJ spinning at the edge of the
Yiddish universe. Hustling knowledge, he hooks visitors via storytelling riffs.

"People come in here arguing who was the better in
cantorial, Rosenblatt or Koussevitzky. Yossele and Moshe, these two were the
Elvis Presleys of their era in the Jewish world. They performed constantly,"
Rutberg said.

An old Polish man, Rutberg said, once brought in four cassettes,
put them on the counter and said, "You know, Simon, I'm a communist. I don't
believe in God. But Yossele Rosenblatt was the best cantor!"

If the atheists are listening to chazzonus, Rutberg said,
"can you imagine the religious? We need more good Jewish atheists in here!"

He could use more of everyone in here.

"There is no point in having a Jewish music store," Rutberg
said. Then why do it?

"I stay here for the anger," he said.

Then in the animated pseudo-masochistic, self-preservational
style of the classic Jewish humorist, he added: "The venting."

Rutberg's love for the past fuels his look forward in anger.
"We try to dumb down Judaism so we don't lose the kids," he said. "But we end
up losing everything. Adam Sandler? We've got Sholom Aleichem!"

Hollywood has called too, when a movie ("Mr. Saturday
Night") or TV show ("X-Files," "Brooklyn Bridge") or Jewish-themed documentary
needs an appropriate track.

During the 1920s and 1930s, RCA, Decca Records and the other
big companies had Yiddish divisions. Rutberg mines these catalogues to produce
his own compilations of the Barry Sisters, Italian Jewish musical traditions
from 1954, mountain Jews' music from the Caucasus -- they can all be found at
Hatikvah Music. Showing off a Yaffa Yarkoni collection he produced, Rutberg
explained: "Here's the Edith Piaf of Israel. She entertained the troops. This
was the first music I heard my father play."

The phone rings, and it's one of his performers, Fortuna,
calling from Brazil. Rutberg is her U.S. distributor. Her pictures are all over
the shop; her album covers hang in the window. Fortuna is arrayed like a Ladino
Queen Esther. "Nobody in the world has ever tried to market Ladino music,"
Rutberg said. "First of all, the market is Jewish, which is [as] big as the end
of your finger. And Ladino is like a microbe in that. Which means that nobody
wants it. But I really dug it. We have over 200 Ladino CDs, which is like
having antique automobiles. I import them from Spain, Germany, Austria, France.
They're my No. 2 seller, bigger than cantorial, Israeli and klezmer."

Tourists account for 40 percent of his sales. "They go back
to France with tons of Rosenblatt, Koussevitzky. Europeans dig these old
cantors, 'like wow, this is trippy, the chanting,' like it's world beat, which
it isn't."

Once "a doo-wop guy" himself, Rutberg doesn't chant anymore,
except to claim that when Hatikvah was Norty's Music Center during the 1960s,
"rock and roll was born here." Jerry Lieber of the songwriting team Lieber
& Stoller - who wrote "Jailhouse Rock," "Hound Dog," "Kansas City, "Spanish
Harlem" -- worked for a buck an hour. Philip Spector went to Fairfax High up the
block and hung out. Local buy Steve Barri, who among his many contributions
produced The Grassroots and the "Big Chill" soundtrack, would also drop by.

"In those days," Rutberg said, "for 15 bucks you could cut a
record. Phil Spector formed the Teddy Bears with a couple pals from the
neighborhood, Carol Connors and Marshall Lieb. There was this kid who used to
write songs and bring 'em to Norty because the store had a rep. His name was
Herb Alpert. He had a band that played bar mitzvahs."

And instead of a rock 'n' roller, Rutberg ended up owner?
"Everybody worked in the Jewish store to go into rock 'n' roll," he said. "I
wanted to get into rock 'n' roll, and I wound up with Jewish. I fell in love
with the emotion."

His greatest musical love remains Jackie Wilson, the Detroit
R&B singer of many 1960s hits. Rutberg hung out with Wilson when he was a
teenager and recently co-produced a three-CD retro of him. But only from
Rutberg can you learn this about Wilson, the man who was an inspiration to
Michael Jackson, the Temptations and the Four Tops: "He loved Al Jolson!"

Dig it: This recording angel of Fairfax Avenue, this L.A.
shopkeeper who single-handedly is keeping Jewish soul music alive, has the
inside goods on black soul singer Jackie Wilson.

"Sure," Rutberg said. "Jackie Wilson, who used to sing
'Well, have you ever seen a girl for whom you'd fight for, die for [in 'Reet
Petite, The Finest Girl You Ever Want To Meet'] -- often sang, 'My Yiddishe
Mama' at the Fontainebleau Hotel!"

Nearly 1,300 of Rutberg's 2,000 CDs are available online
at www.hatikvahmusic.com
. Hatikvah Music International is located at 436 N.
Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles; (323) 655-7083.

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